I am a mentor for a new rookie team in New York City. Our team of 5 students were originally planning on working on their robot (machining, testing, programming, etc) up until the NYC regional competition, April 3-5th. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic going on, the competition is postponed. Additionally, school is now closed in NYC. However, since the start of the competition, our team has had their own space, separate from the school, to be part of FRC. Because of this, NYC school closure does not affect our ability to continue working on their robot. With that said, the head team mentor wants to continue having the kids work on their robot up until April 3rd.
I feel conflicted, as I too want the kids to finish this robot as if the competition is still originally going on, however, I am worried that this isn’t the right thing to do.
Should I push back and have the kids not meet until April 20th (when NYC schools open again)? Should we stop working on the robot? Should I assume the FRC regional competition is cancelled?
1293 kept meeting through this past Saturday despite Smoky Mountains being suspended, but the governor closed schools on Monday. We won’t meet again until they reopen.
In this situation, I would take guidance from the school. If the school is closed, then it’s likely they’ve cancelled extracurricular activities as well. Just because you’re off-site doesn’t mean you should skirt around the school rules - doing so is one way to be sure to get the school administration upset with you and your program!
Our team decided to stop shortly before the gov closed the schools in our area. FRC will continue hopefully long after this pandemic is over. It’s best to just be patient.
One the other hand, if you want to give them something to do. A lot of teams learned Java though Codecadamy
and Onshape’s CAD training is also really good.
What we are doing is that it’s only dangerous if people gather together so the mentor shows up to the shop to turn the robot on and replace batteries and we use teammview to remote control the driverstation which allows us to control the robot, I know this doesn’t allow mechanical to do much but it keeps us going
Edit: It is also legal to have mentors and teachers show up just not students
IMO: Teams should not keep meeting up, not at all. It is too serious right now to be ignoring government recommendations and meeting in medium sized groups when not otherwise necessary. Robots will be there when we all get back from this. Let’s not put members of our community in unnecessary danger.
My team was already shut down for a week (due to unrelated reasons) when the season was called off. We promptly extended the shutdown. School canceled stuff a day or so later.
Gonna be a busy summer once we start again, but we’re staying shut down at least until school opens again.
Yeah if we only use TeamViewer with one person, our end isn’t overloaded the driverstation are pretty high-end so we remote control use intellij from there, when we aren’t teamviewing to get most of the kinks out of the code so our time is efficient I use gradlew simulatejava
We had our last meeting for the foreseeable future yesterday. We did not get to play our events as we were scheduled to compete week 5 and 6. The state of TN announced school closings today. There’s lots of uncertainty about when/if our events or off-season will happen, but there’s not a chance I’ll schedule another in person team meeting until we get some directive from the CDC or local gov that large gatherings are reasonable again. That’ll probably be several weeks? I am working to get our team using Slack again to meet remotely and work on some projects from home. I don’t want to lose the momentum we built up this season and want to be ready for our events (whenever they happen) but the overall health of our community is just a much bigger concern. We typically meet year-round (once or twice a week in summer and off-season), so this is a change.
Another thing you might want to consider is what message it sends. Teams are welcome to do whatever is best for them, but they will still be judged by what they do, by parents, the school, sponsors and others in the community. You are not a large group, so you would technically not be defying the rules of government, but it might also send the message to students that listening to these type of recommendations from the CDC and others trying to protect the public are not really important.
I think most “FRC people” would understand, even if they don’t outright approve. You only have 5 students on your team, if you add 1 or 2 mentors and closely monitor the situation, you might be ok but what do your parents think? Who are those students in contact with on a regular basis? (At risk?) Would parents feel pressured to let their kids go even if they don’t really want them to? Would the meetings be mandatory for the team, or could the students/ parents decide if they feel comfortable going? Is the amount of work you could complete with 1 or 2 students worth the time/ risk of meeting?
These are just a few questions I would suggest you think hard about before you make a final decision. Ultimately whatever you choose there will be advantages and disadvantages, but that’s the process we all go through every year. (For Robot design) Maybe you could have this discussion with parents and students as well and use it as a tool to help unify the team.
People have canceled far more important things in their lives to stop the spread of the virus than robotics meetings. We postponed our wedding because it’s the right thing to do.
My team started a Minecraft server, and I’m trying to keep us in touch with each other via Slack. I’ll also try to start live streaming on Twitch when I am doing anything interesting, like building guitars. Look, if you’re in a rural area and it’s five people I wouldn’t judge you if y’all decided it was safe to get together with precautions, but no way should large teams in places with known infections be coming together. Mine will stay shuttered until they tell us it’s safe to have school again.
Agree - situation specific. Community specific. I’m of the mindset that I believe we need to respect the recommendations by our local jurisdictions. However I do often try and think about for how many students the program is their safe space - and are in need of mental health support now as much as any time.
Digital engagement is good - though my belief is it is too often thought of as a replacement for group contact. I can think of many of our students that struggle in smaller groups preferring not to be the centre of attention where I wish larger gatherings were possible.
The situation is changing every day - I don’t think there’s a hard line of 5 max or 2 max. Measures put in place now are by those who understand better the implications of what they are doing.
I think we’ve covered many good aspects - ultimately I believe no meeting is probably correct - you all know your teams and situations better than we do. Do what’s right for them - and for all of us in the long term.
This has made me think through how I should reach out to our students.